


All the Stars In the Sky

by TamscendingGender



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Black Hermione Granger, Everyone Is Gay, Indian Harry Potter, M/M, Pakistani Sirius Black, Remus and Sirius Have a Kid AU, or queer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-03
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-01-08 14:38:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12256386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TamscendingGender/pseuds/TamscendingGender
Summary: The summer before Cassiopeia Lupin's third year at Hogwarts is going great when an article in the Daily Prophet reveals a secret her father has been keeping from her; she has another dad, and he just happens to be a mass murderer and have escaped from Azkaban. Cassie is shocked, of course, but being who she is she starts reading everything she can find on the case and eventually starts finding some very weird things. Pile homework and school drama on top of that, and this makes for a crazy school year.





	1. Photographs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassie learns a family secret

Normally, Cassiopeia Lupin did not pay attention to what was on the newspaper, as it was often not interesting, but on this particular morning something caught her eye. There was a picture of a man on the cover, and something about him was very familiar.  
“Dad, who’s that guy on the cover?” Cassie asked, pausing in her consumption of a bagel to point at the newspaper. Her father, Remus Lupin, who currently looked even skinnier than he really was due to the very baggy jumper he was wearing, looked up.  
“Oh, him? He’s…he’s nothing.” he said. Cassie squinted at him.  
“You know who he is.” she said accusingly. “Can I look at it?” Her dad looked a little unwilling, but finally passed the newspaper over with a resigned look, as if he were thinking, You’ll find out about it anyway, so I suppose you can read it. Cassie flipped to the front page. ‘SIRIUS BLACK, MASS MURDERER, ESCAPES FROM AZKABAN!!!’ the headline read in very large, very bold letters. Under the headline was a picture of a man with long, tangled hair and a look of determination on his face. Cassie stared at him, wondering why he looked so familiar.  
‘Early last night, notorious mass murderer Sirius Black somehow escaped from his prison cell in Azkaban Prison. Ministry authorities are currently in the process of investigating how Black managed to escape from the high-security prison, a feat which no other person has ever succeeded in.’ the article said. ‘Black was imprisoned twelve years ago for the murder of twelve Muggles and a wizard, Peter Pettigrew, in broad daylight. Black is also suspected of being complicit in the deaths of Lily and James Potter, although this has never been confirmed.’  
“What does complicit mean?” Cassie asked.  
“It means someone was involved with something illegal, as an accomplice.” her dad said, staring at his toast.  
“You knew him.” Cassie said, staring at him. “You were friends with the Potters, right?” There were several pictures of the Potters and her dad in their house, and there was always another man in the pictures but her dad had never explained who he was, no matter how many times she asked him. Suddenly, Cassie remembered where she had seen Sirius Black before. “He’s that other man!” she exclaimed. “The one you won’t ever tell me about!” She jumped up and raced into the living room. The photo with Sirius Black in it was in the back of the jumble of photographs on the bookshelf. She picked it up and looked at it. James Potter, a tall skinny Indian man with messy black hair and large 70s glasses had his arm around Lily Potter, who was very pale and had bright red hair. Her dad looked about the same as he did, just with less gray hair, and he had his arm around Sirius Black. In the photo, Black had his hair tied up in a messy bun, and he was grinning at the camera. He was, Cassie had to admit, very handsome. As Cassie stared at the photo, the Sirius Black image kissed her father on the cheek and her photo-father blushed.  
Cassie’s mind whirled. Was her father not telling her something? He had never lied to her about anything as far as she knew, and omitting a relationship with a mass murderer was on the same level as lying, in Cassie’s opinion. From her Muggle media consumption, she knew that there was a general idea that people were supposed to hide their child’s adoption status from them, and her father had not done that. He had been pretty open about being a werewolf; she had figured it out before he was planning on telling her, but she knew he would have told her. She supposed that he probably had a good reason for not telling her…maybe he thought that she would be afraid of him? Cassie’s mind was in what she liked to call “Fast Mode”. She put the photograph back on the bookshelf and returned to the kitchen.  
“Who was he?” she asked, remaining standing and staring at her father. Her father was silent for a long time, as if he were collecting his thoughts.  
“He was my husband.” he said quietly. Cassie gaped at him. She wasn’t sure how to react to this revelation.  
“You were married to a mass murderer?” she asked, astonished. Her father stared at his hands, which were folded on the table.  
“I never thought he would be a mass murderer.” he said. He took a long, deep breath, and then began. “I met Sirius on the train going to Hogwarts; him and James Potter. We became friends very soon after we met, and eventually Peter Pettigrew joined our group. We were inseparable, and soon James and Sirius became the bane of Hogwarts. They were very full of themselves, as many teenagers are- “  
“Not me.” Cassie said proudly.  
“Yes, not you,” her dad said, continuing. “I didn’t mind that they were so full of themselves, because they were my friends and I knew they liked me for who I was. They knew I was a werewolf; they figured it out in our third year, and they didn’t care. Sirius and I started dating in fifth year, and we got married two years after we left school. We were all in the Order of the Phoenix together, and Sirius and James were each other’s best men. No one knew Sirius was going to…would…” He stopped and sighed. “We picked up some intelligence that You-Know-Who would try to kill Lily and James and Harry, so Dumbledore set up a Fidelius Charm. Do you know what that is?”  
“I think so.” Cassie said. “That’s the thing where you have a Secret Keeper, and only they can tell anyone where you are, right?”  
“Right.” her dad confirmed. “Sirius was the Potter’s Secret Keeper. It was hard to believe, but…” He sighed. “There was no one else who could have betrayed them. From what I heard, Peter went after him to confront him. He wasn’t very good at magic, but he was brave. Sirius blew apart the street…and Peter…and they took him to Azkaban.” He looked down at his hands again. Cassie turned this information over in her head. She was not upset with her father for not telling her about Sirius Black; she guessed that the topic made her father sad.  
“Maybe he’s not actually a criminal, and he escaped Azkaban because he couldn’t handle being away from you.” she suggested. Her father just looked even more sad. They finished eating in silence, and Cassie disappeared into her room to work on an essay Snape had assigned for the summer. She had used Muggle ballpoint pens, as opposed to quill pens, at home ever since she had discovered them in a Muggle shop when she was eight. Muggles had so many innovations that were so much more convenient than the traditional wizard tools, and often Cassie wondered why wizards still bothered with quill and parchment when there was notebook paper and pencils available. She had briefly considered taking Muggle Studies to learn more about the reasons behind this oversight, but had decided that it would be pointless, given that she had lived in Muggle society for her entire life. Despite her interest in potions, she found it very difficult to focus on her writing. Speculations about Sirius Black and what he was up to bounced around her head, and eventually she gave up and moved over to her sketchbook. She was going to draw a picture of Sirius Black killing the street of Muggles, but she changed it to the picture of him and her dad. She stared at it, wondering what had happened to Black that had changed him from the happy man in that photograph to the brooding mass murderer she had seen on the front cover of the Daily Prophet. Perhaps someday she would understand, Cassie decided, and with that in mind she began to focus in earnest on her essay.


	2. Diagon Alley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's school shopping time! Cassie gets a cat, which will hopefully not add to the apparent stress Ron's rat is under.

A couple days after the article about Sirius Black appeared in the Prophet, Cassie’s dad received a letter from Professor McGonagall asking him to be the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.   
“I think you should accept the job.” Cassie said when he told her about it. “We don’t need another awful teacher in that subject, and I want to pass my OWLs when they come around.”   
“You’ll pass them.” her dad said. “I’m going to accept it…it pays well and I know Dumbledore won’t fire me.” He smiled sadly. Cassie abandoned her sketching of Lysander, the family cat, and began composing an excited letter to her friends, knowing that they too would be very excited, both because when one was a werewolf finding a decent job in the wizarding was nigh on impossible, and because they would finally have a competent DADA teacher. When she returned from sending Archimedes, the family owl, off to deliver her messages, she found her father sitting on the living room floor with piles of books surrounding him.  
“I’m trying to decide on books to assign.” he explained, upon noticing her staring at him incredulously. “It would be nice if at least the third year one were something from our collection so we don’t have to buy one.” He picked up a book and set it on top of a very small pile, which Cassie guessed were the books he had already selected. “What do you think of this one?” She took the book her dad was offering to her and examined it. It was an old copy, on the page she had turned to, a chapter on hinkypunks, someone had drawn a very bad caricature of Professor Binns in the corner. Next to it was a heart with “S + R” inside of it.   
“Was this yours?” Cassie asked. Her dad looked at it.   
“No, I think that was Sirius’.” he said, smiling sadly. “He loved to vandalize books.” He returned to sorting through the book pile. Cassie decided to take the textbook with her. She flipped through it, wondering if she could find any hints that her other father had been a heartless mass murderer when he was a schoolboy, but all she could see evidence of was a boy who didn’t pay attention in class and liked Quidditch and playing hangman. She wondered if he had known he would go on to betray his friends and husband.   
Cassie’s book list arrived a few days later, and she and her father went to Diagon Alley the next day. She didn’t know if any of her friends would be there; most of them were on holiday, and the ones that weren’t had people visiting and were unable to get away. They lived within walking distance of the Leaky Cauldron, and it was a lovely August day. Cassie loved going to Diagon Alley because there were always so many fascinating things to look at. She was staring into the window of Quality Quidditch Supplies when she spotted someone that she recognized.   
“Dad, it’s Harry!” she exclaimed. Her father had moved on a couple feet, and he paused to look when she called his name.  
“If you want to go in and say hello, I’ll be in Gringotts.” he said, and Cassie immediately dashed into the shop. She found Harry at the front of a crowd gawping at a new broom. The sign above the display told her that it was the new Firebolt, and that it was crazily expensive.  
“I bet they’d give that to you for free.” she said in his ear. “You being the Boy Who Lived and all.” Harry jumped in surprise, and then grinned when he realized who she was.   
“Oh, hey Cassie.” he said.  
“Had a nice summer so far? What are you doing in Diagon Alley by yourself?” Cassie asked. Harry made a face that told her exactly how his summer had been going.  
“I blew up my fake aunt and my aunt and uncle kicked me out of the house so I’ve been staying in the Leaky Cauldron.” Harry said. Cassie gaped.  
“You blew up your aunt?” she exclaimed. “How did you do that?”  
“Well, not really blew up. She expanded and floated up onto the ceiling.” Harry said. “I don’t know how it happened. She insulted my family and I got angry.”   
“That’s insane.” Cassie said. “My dad went to Gringotts to get some money. Do you want to come?”   
“Sure.” Harry said. “I don’t have anything to do.” They squeezed through the crowd and emerged into the sunlight of the street.  
“You eyeing that broom?” Cassie asked.   
“I can’t afford it.” Harry said sadly. “I wish I could, though. It’s the fastest broom ever!”   
“You’re closer than I am.” Cassie said sadly. “I could barely afford a splinter.” They arrived at the steps of Gringotts and were met at the bottom by Cassie’s dad.  
“Hello, Harry.” he said, smiling. “How has your summer been?” Harry related the story of how he had blown his aunt up. Cassie could tell her father was concealing a secret enjoyment of the story, but since he was supposed to be a responsible adult he didn’t show it. Instead, he frowned. “Well, it’s a good thing you have Diagon Alley to come to.” he said pragmatically.   
“Dad, did you see the Firebolt?” Cassie exclaimed. “It’s the fastest broom ever, it says! It’s sooo sleek. I would honestly die to have the chance to ride it.”  
“I don’t think that’s a good trade-off.” her dad said. “Well, Christmas is coming.” It was what he always said when Cassie saw something she wanted. Usually, the thing was too expensive and they never did get it. Cassie had begun to be fine with this.  
“Are you going shopping, or have you already been?” Cassie asked Harry.   
“I’ve been waiting for Ron and Hermione.” Harry said. “I don’t’ know when they’re supposed to get here. Sometime soon, I guess.”  
“Very soon.” Cassie’s dad said. They turned around and spotted Ron and Hermione making their way through the crowds.   
“Ron! Hermione!” Cassie yelled, jumping and waving. Hermione also waved enthusiastically, and they walked over to them. There was enthusiastic greeting on the part of the girls, and stoic masculine handshaking on the part of the boys. Cassie thought that the way that her male friends greeted each other was, frankly, quite ridiculous.   
“How was Egypt?” she asked Ron. “I saw you guys in the papers. Did you see any gruesome curses or anything?”  
“Nah. Mum wouldn’t let us see the real gruesome stuff.” Ron said. “Fred and George tried, but she caught them. It was fun, though Scabbers didn’t have such a great time.” He pulled Scabbers the rat out of his pocket. The poor creature looked half dead. “I’m going to take him to the pet shop to see if they can do anything.”   
“That’s good, because I’m going to get a pet from there.” Hermione said excitedly. “My birthday is soon and my parents gave me the money. I think I’m going to get an owl, because they’re so useful!”   
“Please don’t get a cat.” Ron said. “Scabbers can’t handle that much stress.” Cassie, who was planning on buying a cat also, having saved enough money from her summer job in the bakery near their house, looked a little sheepish.   
“What happened to him?” Hermione asked as they began to walk towards the store. Ron shrugged.  
“After we came back from Egypt, he stared looking like this.” he said. “I don’t know why.”  
“Maybe he’s just getting old.” Cassie suggested. Ron looked a little put out at this suggestion. They entered the store, and had to pause a moment to get used to the dim light. There were animals on every available space. Somewhere up above them, Cassie could hear the hooting of owls. Snakes slithered lazily up shelves, and several sleek rats were playing in a cage on the desk. The was a very pretty grey tabby kitten sitting on a shelf next to an aquarium full of what appeared to be frogs. Cassie went over to pet it.   
“She’s a sweetie, that kitten.” the witch behind the counter said. “Are you looking for a cat?”  
“Yes, I am.” Cassie said. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Ron looking betrayed. “How much is she?” The kitten clambered up her arm and sat on her shoulder, purring enthusiastically. The witch opened her mouth to respond, but was interrupted by a horrified yelling from behind them. A huge orange cat had leaped from one of the shelves, and was clinging to Ron’s head.   
“Crookshanks!” the witch yelled, striding over and removing, with difficulty, the cat from Ron’s head. “Bad cat! I’m very sorry about that.” she added, after banishing Crookshanks to the nether regions of the shop, “He doesn’t usually do that. Anyway, as I was saying, dear, we usually sell tabbies for nine galleons, but since she’s so young I think I’ll give her to you for 7.” Cassie proudly, since she hadn’t had seven galleons to spend on a cat before, handed over the money. She wouldn’t have to spend anything on cat care supplies, since they already had plenty for Lysander at home. Ron went up to the desk to talk to the witch about Scabbers, and Cassie joined Hermione in looking at all the animals.   
“Did you hear about that criminal who escaped?” Hermione asked. “Sirius Black?” Cassie stared at one of the snakes, formulating a response.  
“Yeah.” she said. “It’s scary, isn’t it? He killed all those people.” He’s my dad. My other dad is a mass murderer.   
“He betrayed Harry’s parents.” Hermione said in a low voice. “He was their Secret Keeper. I don’t think Harry knows that. Do you think we should tell him?”  
“I don’t know.” Cassie said. “Should we leave that to, like, Dumbledore or Mrs. Weasley or something?”   
“Maybe.” Hermione said. “I trust Mrs. Weasley to do what’s best for him.” She picked up a cage of small, fluffy animals and frowned at them. “You know, I think I’m going to get that cat, Crookshanks. He has personality.”   
“Ron’s going to be mad at you.” Cassie said. Hermione shrugged.   
“I don’t care what Ron thinks.” she said. “Well, I do.” she conceded, “but I don’t care if he doesn’t like my cat. It only matters that I like him.” They walked back over to the witch at the front counter. Harry and Ron had disappeared: Cassie suspected that Crookshanks, who was lounging on the counter, was the cause. He had a very self-satisfied look on his face. Cassie’s new kitten, who had lodged herself on her shoulder, meowed in greeting, and the two cats seemed to commence having an engaging conversation. Hermione didn’t have to haggle much with the witch, who seemed to be happy to give Crookshanks a home.  
“Poor thing, he’s been here for years.” she said as she took Hermione’s money. “I’m glad he’s finding a home with you, dear. And he’ll have a friend!” She nodded at the cat on Cassie’s shoulder. Hermione and Cassie walked out of the shop, feeling pretty pleased about their purchases. They found Ron and Harry standing a couple feet away. Ron was looking upset, and his mood did not improve when he saw that the girls had acquired cats.  
“Why did you buy that thing?” he exclaimed, glaring at Hermione.  
“He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?” Hermione gushed, ignoring Ron. Crookshanks’ face was a little smushed, but his fur was a gorgeous orange, Cassie thought. The boys didn’t seem to think much of that. “The witch said that he’s been in the shop for ages.”  
“I have a rat who is sick already! He doesn’t need more stress!” Ron exclaimed. Hermione walked past him towards the rest of the shops. “I hope your cat doesn’t chase rats.” Ron grumbled to Cassie.   
“She’s a good girl. She won’t chase Scabbers, will you, kitty?” Cassie said. Her cat seemed ambivalent to the idea of chasing Scabbers.


	3. Dementors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The train ride is usually fun, but why are there soul sucking monsters on it?

“Did you remember everything?” Cassie’s dad asked her for the fiftieth time that morning. They were standing on Platform 9 and 3/4, and Cassie had already put her trunk on the train. Circe, the kitten, was in her basket, and had finally stopped yowling in protest. “Yes, Dad, I have everything.” she said. “I checked three times. You know that because you checked it the last two times.”  
“I know; I just don’t want to have to send you half of your schoolbooks by mail again.” her dad said.  
“Cassie!” someone yelled. Cassie turned and saw Neville Longbottom, one of her friends, waving at her. He was with his grandmother. He hurried over to them. “Hi, Mr. Lupin. Do you want to sit together on the train?”  
“Of course.” Cassie said. “I was hoping to find Yvonne, too.” Yvonne was a Hufflepuff girl in their year who they were friends with. A lot of the people in their year thought she was weird because she used what Muggles called a wheelchair. Cassie had never understood why people thought magic could fix anything, which was a main factor in people’s bemusement with Yvonne. You couldn’t make money with magic, after all. Anyway, Yvonne’s wheelchair could fly, which was really cool. She had needed a special permit from the Ministry to put the spell on it.  
“She’s probably already on.” Neville said. As he spoke, the whistle blew.  
“You’d better get going.” Cassie’s dad said. He kissed her on the head. “I’ll see you at the feast. Have a good train ride! Don’t forget to check everything before you get off.”  
“I know, Dad.” Cassie said. She and Neville hurried onto the train, and hung out the window waving while it pulled away from the platform. Once the families on the platform had faded into the distance, they hurried down the corridor looking for Yvonne. They found her at the other end of the car. She was sitting with Luna Lovegood, a Ravenclaw second year. Cassie plopped herself down in between Luna and where Yvonne had parked her chair.  
“Hey guys! How was your break?” she asked.  
“Good.” Yvonne said. “My family and I went to the United States to see some family we have there.”  
“What’s it like there?” Neville asked, sitting across from the girls. “My Uncle Algy says the Muggles there are insane.”  
“Don’t listen to your Uncle Algy.” Cassie said. “Dad says that the Muggles there are just like the Muggles in England. There’s just more of them.”  
“And they have guns.” Luna said dreamily. “That’s what my Daddy told me. They all have guns and they shoot each other all the time. I think it sounds really scary.”  
“What’s a gun?” Neville asked.  
“I think it’s some kind of strange animal.” Luna said.  
“It’s like a wand, but you only use it for killing.” Yvonne said. “You put little bits of metal in them and then you pull a trigger and it shoots the metal really fast, and you can kill someone with it.” Neville and Luna both looked afraid.  
“They’re scary.” Cassie confirmed. “Dad and I used to live in a really sketchy Muggle neighborhood and there would be gunfire all the time. I don’t think the Muggles got the guns legally.”  
“Yikes.” Neville said. “I’m glad I don’t live in the city.”  
“It’s not all bad. They have police officers to stop people from killing other people.” Cassie said. “The police don’t have guns but they can stop people with guns.”  
“Is a police another kind of weapon?” Luna asked. “Muggles are so strange!” She looked intrigued by Muggles.  
“They’re not that weird.” Yvonne said, looking a little insulted. “My family isn’t that weird, and they’re Muggles. Actually, my dad’s a police officer. And my grandma, but she’s going to retire soon.”  
“Is that like dying?” Neville asked, looking genuinely concerned. Cassie laughed, but then felt bad.  
“No, it’s when you get too old to work and then you stop working, and your work pays you money to keep you going, or something like that.” Yvonne said. Luna and Neville seemed fascinated by the concept.  
“Did you do anything interesting over the summer?” Cassie asked Luna. Luna always seemed to do something strange with her dad.  
“Not particularly.” Luna said. “Daddy is trying to raise money to go on an expedition. Anyway, after we heard about Sirius Black, Daddy didn’t want to go anywhere.” Cassie felt a tight knot forming in her stomach, as it had every time she saw articles about Black in the Prophet. She had a feeling that her friends would have a similar reacting to the revelation that she was Black’s child to the reaction the school had when they thought Harry was the Heir of Slytherin the previous year.  
“Gran has a theory that Black didn’t really kill all those people.” Neville said. “She thinks that the Ministry framed him because they didn’t want to seem incompetent. Gran doesn’t really think much of the Ministry sometimes.”  
“Didn’t he blow up an entire street? With Muggle witnesses? That’s pretty hard to frame someone for.” Cassie said.  
“Gran says he was too nice to have killed all those people, and she says she knows people.” Neville said. “She also said…” and here he stopped, looking embarrassed. “Um…” Cassie stared at him. She had a feeling of what he was going to say. “Cassie, maybe you should tell.” She was right. She bit her lip, then decided that these were her friends, and if they dumped her as a friend after knowing the truth, they weren’t real friend and they didn’t deserve her anyway.  
“He and my dad were married.” she said, staring at them all in defiance of their potential judgement. “And if any of you tells a soul, I’ll hex you all.” she added, glaring. Luna looked mildly surprised by this revelation. Yvonne appeared to be trying to figure out how to react.  
“That’s why Gran thinks he probably didn’t kill all those people.” Neville said, a bit awkwardly. “Because there’s no way Cassie’s dad would marry a murderer.”  
“He could have been an oriss.” Luna suggested. “They’re known to kill people and take their bodies.”  
“Look, there’s the trolley witch!” Cassie exclaimed, partly in an attempt to stop the conversation, and partly because she was hungry.  
“Does anyone want anything?” Neville asked. “Gran gave me money to buy snacks.” The girls gave him their food orders, and he went out into the hallway to purchase things.  
“Does Dumbledore know about your dad?” Yvonne asked. “He might pose a…I don’t know…a security threat to the school.”  
“My dad would never betray us.” Cassie snapped. “I don’t understand why you would suspect him of something like that.”  
“I know, I’m sorry.” Yvonne said, looking a little ashamed. Neville came back into the compartment and distributed sweets. “It’s just, Black might use the connection to his advantage. You never know what criminals will do. That’s what my dad always says.”  
“It’ll be fine.” Cassie said, a little coldly. “Dad fought against Voldemort. He can handle Sirius Black.” Sirius Black fought against Voldemort too, or pretended to. a small part of her brain thought. Sirius Black must know all the secrets of Hogwarts. And your dad’s secrets…secret. She ate her pumpkin pasty in silence. The conversation turned to other things, luckily, and soon Cassie, Yvonne, and Neville were playing an energetic game of Exploding Snap while Luna read The Quibbler, her father’s magazine, with great interest. As night fell, it started to rain. Neville went to sleep, and Yvonne and Cassie each became buried in their own reading material: a romance novel for Yvonne and a Captain America comic collection for Cassie. They were all engrossed in their various activities when suddenly, the train came to a stop.  
“Are we at Hogwarts?” Neville asked sleepily. Cassie peered out the window. It was too dark to tell what was going on.  
“Maybe the train’s broken.” Yvonne said worriedly.  
“If it’s broken, the engineer can just fix it with magic.” Cassie said. “We shouldn’t be too long.” They sat in anxious silence. Suddenly, the air became very cold. “Did the heating break, too?” Cassie asked, frowning. She went to stare out the window. As she looked, she felt a terrible presence. Yvonne squeaked in fear. Cassie turned around, pulling her wand from her pocket as she turned. There was a big thing in a cloak standing in the doorway. It drifted towards them. Cassie raised her wand, but was overcome by a strange memory that she had never had before.  
She must be a baby, because she is in someone’s arms. There is shouting. “It’s not true, Albus! You have to do something! They can’t put him in Azkaban! Give him a trial, for fuck’s sake! Goddamnit, what about the baby? It’s not true! It’s not true!” “Remus, Remus.”  
“Fuck you!” Cassie yelled at the cloaked thing. “Get out! I don’t know what you want, but get out!” The thing drifted towards her, reaching clammy hands. Cassie backed away from it, trying to ignore the screaming in her ears.  
“What the hell is that doing in here?” someone yelled. “Expecto Patronum!” A silvery falcon came zooming into the room, and the cloaked thing recoiled. It gusted through the door and away, pursued by the falcon. Their savior was a tall Slytherin seventh year whom Cassie had seen around the castle a few times. He was tall and Asian, and always seemed to be reading very thick books.  
“Are you kids alright?” he asked them, putting his wand back into his jeans pocket. “I have no idea what the fuck they were thinking, bringing dementors onto the train. That’s the Ministry for you. It’s probably about that Black.”  
“What’s a demented-thingy?” Cassie asked. “It was going to eat us!” She felt drained, and annoyed that she hadn’t been able to fight the thing. A small part of her brain, the more rational part that she rarely used, whispered that she was thirteen and probably didn’t have the magical skills to fight it yet.  
“A dementor. They guard Azkaban. It sucks souls and the only think that can protect you from it is a Patronus.” the Slytherin guy said. “Stupid, bringing them on the train. Why would Sirius Black be on the train? Anyway, since you’re all fine, I’m going to go check on the other kids.” He walked away, muttering under his breath.  
“Did you guys hear people screaming in your heads?” Cassie asked. Neville nodded shakily. He had gone pasty. Yvonne and Luna shook their heads.  
“I heard my parents getting…you know.” Neville said quietly. Neville’s parents had been Aurors, and had been tortured to madness by Death Eaters after the war had ended.  
“What did you hear?” Luna asked Cassie. Cassie shrugged.  
“I don’t really know. Maybe it was my dad finding out Black was in Azkaban. I don’t know.” It seemed like a personal thing, and she didn’t want to tell them about it.  
“I agree with that Slytherin who saved us.” Yvonne said. “It’s stupid to let those things on a train, especially if they suck souls.” They all shuddered, thinking about what it would be like to have your soul sucked by a dementor.


End file.
